Heracleon and the Hermeneutics of Prepositions: Interpreting ˆen

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HERACLEON AND THE HERMENEUTICS OF PREPOSITIONS: INTERPRETING ˆEN

ANNEWIES VAN DEN HOEK*

Adelbert Davids is distinguished not only for his studies in the field of Byzan- tine theology and the relationship between East and West but also for his interest in earlier phases of Christianity – after all he taught the whole spec- trum of Christian history from antiquity to modern times and published studies on 1 Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Bardesanes, Cyprian, and Pseudo-Basil, just to name a few. The present contribution deals with a seemingly trivial aspect of early Christian hermeneutics, namely the use of prepositions and prepositional phrases in theological debates. It is offered as a small token for my appreciation of the broad scholarly reach of my “doctor father” and of his continu- ous friendship over the years.

In his vast arsenal of biblical ammunition, Clement of Alexandria presents two quotations from Heracleon, an author who preceded him by a genera- tion or two.1 Very little is known about Heracleon and his whereabouts,

* Annewies van den Hoek teaches Greek and Latin at Harvard Divinity School. 1 For recent studies of Heracleon, see Ansgar Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus. Gnos- tische Johannesexegese im zweiten Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 2002). Michael Kaler and Marie- Pierre Bussières, ‘Was Heracleon a Valentinian? A New Look at Old Sources’, Harvard Theological Review, 99 (2006), pp. 275-289. For the extant fragments of Heracleon: A.E. Brooke, The Fragments of Heracleon (Cambridge, 1891); for the sources in Antiquity refer- ring to Heracleon: Brooke, Fragments, pp. 31-41. W. Völker, Quellen zur Geschichte der christlichen Gnosis (Tübingen, 1932), p. 63-86 (text of Preuschen). For older literature: Antonio Orbe, Los primeros herejes ante la persecucion, Analecta Gregoriana, 83 (Rome, 1956), pp. 1ff. Y. Janssens, ‘Héracléon. Commentaire sur l'évangile de Jean’, Le Muséon, 72 (1959), pp. 100-151; 277-299. Manlio Simonetti, ‘Eracleone e Origene’, Vetera Chris- tianorum, 3 (1966), pp. 11-141; 4 (1967), pp. 23-64. Elaine H. Pagels, The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis: Heracleon’s Commentary on John (Nashville - New York, 1973). Domenico Devoti, ‘Antropologia e storia della salvezza in Eracleone’, Memoria della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, serie V (Torino, 1978), pp. 1-83. G.A. Bernadelli, Tertulliano, Scorpiace, Biblioteca patristica, 14 (Firenze, 1990), pp. 22-24 and 264-265. Manlio Simonetti, Testi Gnostici in Lingua Greca e Latina (Vicenza, 1993), pp. 223-267. 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 38

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except for forty-eight quotations from his Commentary on the Gospel of John, which are included in the commentary on that gospel by Origen. Two quotations from different commentaries appear in Clement, and a short passage is included in a letter of Photius.2 Some hearsay remarks are also reported in the writings of Irenaeus, Tertullian and Ps. Hippolytus, but these authors do not quote Heracleon’s words directly.3 Since Clement and Origen provide the best evidence, it seems possible that Heracleon, like them, may have been active in Alexandria at one time. The works that they knew well enough to quote verbatim could have been transmitted through libraries or other collections of writings in that city. Her- acleon’s philological methods also show a close relationship with the Alexan- drian environment. From the surviving fragmentary evidence, he appears to have been a meticulous reader and text critic of the Scriptures; every inflec- tion, every syllable, and every dot seem to have been analyzed. Because of his philological interests modern scholars have identified him as the first Chris- tian philologist and given him the epithet “Heracleon Philologus”.4 His taste for the letter of biblical text, however, is balanced with a healthy dose of alle- gorical or spiritual interpretation, through which he is able to stretch the literary boundaries as much as necessary for his hermeneutical acrobatics.5 An argument typical of Heracleon’s often-convoluted grammatical analy- ses turns around the preposition “in” (ên) as it is used in two passages. The first example is transmitted through Clement’s Stromateis.6 Clement first pre-

2 In addition to a commentary on the Gospel of John, Heracleon may have written a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew or Luke, see the fragments preserved in Clement, Str. IV 70-72 (Brooke, fr. 50), and Ecl. 25 (Brooke, fr. 49). 3 Clement (Str. IV 71, 1) calls him the most famous of the Valentinian school, and Origen (Io.Com II XIV 100) mentions him as someone who was said to be a pupil of Valentinus. Irenaeus (Adv.Haer. II 4, 1) refers to him in the company of Ptolemaeus, while Tertullian (Adv.Valent. 4) mentions him in the context of Valentinian teachings. Ps. Hippolytus (Ref.Omn.Haer. 6, 35) links him and Ptolemaeus to the “Italic” Valentinian school. 4 See the title of Wucherpfennig’s book and his chapter on Heracleon’s Commentary of John in the tradition of Hellenistic philology (Heracleon Philologus, pp. 372-381). 5 See, for example, fr. 18; and Annewies van den Hoek, ‘Origen's Role in Formulating Later Christological Language: The Case of ânákrasiv’, in Origeniana Septima. Origenes in den Auseinandersetzungen des 4. Jahrhunderts, eds. W. A. Bienert and U. Kühneweg (Leuven, 1999), pp. 40-43. 6 Clement, Str. IV 72, 1-3 = Heracleon, fr. 50 (Brooke). 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 39

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sents a selection of gospel sayings around the topic of martyrdom, as a basis for further discussion (Luke 12,8-9, Mark 8,38, Matthew 10,32-33, and Luke 12,11-12). These passages were also the core elements in Heracleon’s subsequent passage, which were probably drawn from his commentary on the gospel of Luke or Matthew, and it is likely that Clement made his selection inspired by the selection from Heracleon.7 The discussion turns around salvation and the conduct of people in times of persecution. Central is the question of what value a confession before a public tribunal has, as opposed to a confession expressed through faith and conduct. Heracleon wants to limit the verbal confession to being a partial vehicle of salvation while giving full credit to those who lived a faithful life throughout. He argues his viewpoint through the words of Matthew and Luke, ‘everyone who confesses in me’, and ‘who- ever denies me’, and sees a major theological distinction between the two phrases.

‘It (scripture) rightly used the word “in me” for those who confess and applied the word “me” for those who deny. For those, even if they confess him with their voice, deny him since they don’t confess in their conduct. Only they confess in him who live according to him in confession and conduct, in whom he also confesses, holding them and being held by them. Therefore “he never can deny himself”,8 but they deny him who are not in him. For he did not say, he who will deny in me, but me. For nobody who is in him denies him…’.9

Although it may not immediately be clear to the modern reader why Heracleon puts so much emphasis on the distinction “in me” and “me”, Clement does not question the interpretation for its details. He even agrees with Heracleon about his reading of the pericopes.10 He only faintly questions Heracleon’s skepticism about oral confessions in front of tribunals but wants to give equal value to both groups: those who have lived consistently a faithful life and those who express their faith publicly and on the spot.

7 As Irenaeus and Tertullian show, this group of biblical texts was already part of an anti- heretical discourse on martyrdom; Irenaeus, Adv.Haer. III 18, 5; Tertullian, Scorpiace, 9- 11. 8 2 Tim. 2,13. 9 Clement, Str. IV 72, 1-3 = Heracleon, fr. 50 (Brooke). 10 See Str. IV 73, 1. 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 40

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Heracleon puts great emphasis on the difference between “in me” and “me” in the first instance because of a linguistic problem in Greek. The verb ömologéw can be construed in various ways: the verb may take a dative (but without a preposition) to express agreement: “to agree” or “to correspond with”. It takes a genitive to mean: “to be suitable for”, and an accusative to express: “to grant”, “to acknowledge”, or “to confess.” None of these examples have a preposition in their configuration, and for the meaning evidently intended in the passage (“to confess”), ömologéw should have been followed by an accusative without preposition. LSJ noticed the anomaly and made the parenthetical remark that: ‘ömologéw ên tini Ev. Matt. 10, 32 appears to be an Aramaism’. Taking this one step further: the equivalent in Hebrew is possibly the cor- relative verb edi (“to confess, praise, give thanks”), which regularly takes the preposition b and sometimes l, and conforms nicely to the Greek ên (b) in Matthew and Luke.11 For Greek speakers the additional preposition ên with the verb ömologéw must have hurt their ears, but they would have found it hard to amend since the idiom occurred in the gospel text itself. The usage of ömologéw ên has not escaped the attention of New Testament scholars either, who have commented extensively on its Semitic background. Some have also suggested that a “Christian” line of thought might lie behind it, since both Christian and Jewish beliefs imply faith “in” someone.12 Be this as it may, there is no indication that the expression ömologéw ên ever took root in the Greek-speaking Christian world. In later times it only occurs on the rare occasions when the two gospel texts are cited.13 Neither Clement nor Origen nor later theologians show any fondness for the non-Greek construction; on the contrary, they all seem to prefer ömologéw with the accusative.14

11 See Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Peabody, Mass., 2005), p. 584. With thanks to Gary Anderson, to whom I owe this observation (personal communication). 12 See François Bovon, Das Evangelium nach Lukas (Lk 9,51-14,35) (Zürich - Düsseldorf, 1996), p. 260, with reference to Frédéric Louis Godet, Commentaire sur l'évangile de Saint Luc (Paris, 1888-89), II, p. 131. 13 A complex search on the TLG (vol. E) of ömolog with ên showed 128 occurrences; only a few showed this particular construction and in all cases the two gospel texts were part of the discussion; see, for example, Didymus Caecus, In Genesim, Codex page 176, line 15. 14 See, for example, Clement in Str. IV 73, 1: … Ümológjsan tòn Xristòn ∂mprosqen t¬n 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 41

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For someone like Heracleon, however, the unusual construction in Greek provided a good opportunity to display his ingenuity, just as Origen prac- ticed his skills whenever a linguistic problem crossed his path. Heracleon took the opportunity to emphasize the intricate relationship, the virtual iden- tity, of Christ and spiritual believers, thereby taking the discussion to a different level. In this process he was able to transform the philological difficulty to his theological advantage. The real point of Heracleon’s discourse on the preposition “in” is as much related to martyrdom and death as it is to the creation of humankind and its relationship to God. It is possible that in emphasizing the role of prepositions other influences came into play as well. Philosophical schools had long had an interest in prepositions, intense enough to be termed the “metaphysics of prepositions;” it became a kind of philosophical linguistics dealing with the creation of the cosmos.15 They address questions such as the cause, the instrument and the objective of the creation. As others have pointed out, the Platonic tradition articulated these different aspects of the creation of the cosmos by alternat- ing a sequence of prepositions “that by which, that from which, and that to which … the cosmos came into existence” (üfˆ oœ - êz oœ - pròv º … ö kós- mov sunéstjken).16 Other philosophical traditions, possibly influenced by Stoic thought, did not take up this Platonic formulation, since their view of the cosmos and its creation was different. God was not, as in Platonism, above or outside the world imposing form on matter like a human designer. God was an integral part of the cosmos, and the cosmos in all its elements was interconnected. For this reason Stoics applied different prepositions to match their different worldview. In their case, the sequence through which the creation came into existence was “that from which, that in or through which, and that to which … the cosmos came into existence” (êz oœ - ên ˜ç / di ˆ oœ - eîv ºn … ö kósmov sunéstjken). In this vision the universe was placed

ânqrÉpwn, and Origen, Exhortatio ad martyrium, 10; also interesting is the correction in Epiphanius, Panarion, Vol. II, p. 319, l. 23: kaì pálin ö ömolog¬n ên êmoí, ömologßsw aûtòn ênÉpion toÕ patróv mou. 15 Willy Theiler, Die Vorbereitung des Neuplatonismus (Berlin, 1934), pp. 18ff. Heinrich Dörrie, ‘Präpositionen und Metaphysik. Wechselwirkung zweier Prinzipienreihen’, Museum Helveticum, 26 (1969), pp. 217-228. John Dillon, The Middle Platonists (London, 1977), pp. 137-139. 16 Dörrie, ‘Präpositionen’, pp. 217-218. 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 42

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in the divine entity between origin and ultimate goal, so that the cosmos comes out, goes through, and returns to God.17 In the on-going philosophical debates, the distinctions in terminology seem at times to have softened. Prepositions migrated from one system to another, or different prepositions came into play. Both the New Testament and early Christian authors show traces of the various terminologies.18 Ori- gen, for example, uses the language quite consciously and with great skill, par- ticularly when he deals with New Testament texts, where the prepositions were already prominent.19 This process of formulation and reformulation - sketched here in a nutshell - indicates that the usage of prepositions in late antiquity was not as peripheral that it might seem at first sight. In his Commentary on the Gospel of John, Origen brings up another passage of Heracleon that turns around the use of the preposition “in”. The context is a discussion of John 1,4 and Heracleon’s interpretation thereof:

‘Arriving at this passage “what was made in him was life”, Heracleon quite violently interpreted instead of “in him” by “in the spiritual people”, as if he considered the Logos and the spiritual people to be the same, even if he did not say this explicitly’.20

Origen often accuses his literary opponent of having interpreted the biblical texts “violently”, an accusation which had become a topos in anti-hereti-

17 Ibid., pp. 218-219. 18 See Gregory E. Sterling, ‘Prepositional Metaphysics in Jewish Wisdom Speculation and Early Christian Liturgical Texts’, in Wisdom and Logos. Studies in Jewish Thought in Honor of David Winston, The Studia Philonica Annual, XIV, 1997. Brown Judaic Studies, 312 (Atlanta, 1997), pp. 219-238. 19 Origen was well aware of the philosophical implications of the prepositional language. In Contra Celsum 6, 65 Origen lays out the Stoic sequence (êz - diá - eîv) after quoting Rom. 11,36: ö dˆ ™méterov PaÕlov “ˆEz aûtou” légei “kaì diˆ aûtoÕ kaì eîv aûtòn tà pánta”, paristàv t®n ârx®n t±v t¬n pántwn üpostásewv ên t¬ç “êz aûtou” kaì t®n sunox®n ên t¬ç “diˆ aûtou” kaì tò télov ên t¬ç “eîv aûtón”. Compare also Io.Com II 10, 70-72 (diá) quoting John 1,3, Rom. 1,1-5, and Hebr. 1,2. Rom.Com 3, 5-5,7 (Pap. of Toura, p. 172) (êk - diá) quoting Rom. 3,30, 1 Cor. 11,12, and Rom. 11,36. Io.Com I 19, 110; II 14, 102 (üpó - diá) quoting John 1,1. See also some examples in Latin in Rom.Com A III 8 and VIII 12-13 (‘ex - per – in’) quoting Rom. 11,36 and 1 Cor. 8,6. 20 Origen, Io.Com II XXI 137 = Heracleon, fr. 2 (Brooke). 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 43

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cal literature.21 Origen himself deals with Heracleon’s interpretation in a rather indirect way. Although he claims that Heracleon mistreated the text by interpreting the words “in him” with the words “in the spiritual people,” he cannot catch Heracleon in a clear hermeneutical violation. Therefore Ori- gen inserts the phrase “as if he considered …”, which reflects his own interpretation of Heracleon’s thought. In addition, Origen claims that Heracleon intended to say something without actually saying it (“even if he did not say this explicitly”). So the whole presentation of Heracleon’s thought is done in a roundabout way; it almost sounds like a willful misunderstanding. Origen continues by quoting Heracleon verbatim:

‘And as to explain he says: “He (the Logos) himself provided them with their first modeling, that of their origin, carrying and displaying what another had sown into form, light, and its own contour”’.22

This abstruse sentence is followed by a diatribe, in which Origen lectures Heracleon about Paul’s understanding of “spiritual” and about the incom- patibility of the divine spirit and unspiritual humans.23 Blaming Heracleon for not providing evidence for his hypothesis, Origen puts an abrupt end to any further discussion with his words: ‘So much then for him’.24 Since the lines are cited without context, it is difficult to reconstruct the full sense of Heracleon’s thought in this passage. The heavy overlay of Ori- gen’s own opinion and his polemical intentions make this even harder. It is, in any case, clear that in a kind of gloss Heracleon explained the words “in him” with “in (litt. to) the spiritual people”. As others have pointed out, the exchange of eîv plus accusative for ên plus dative is not unusual in the com- mon Greek of the New Testament and does not necessarily change the meaning of the preposition here.25 So far Heracleon’s interpretation of the Johannine text is compatible with the thoughts expressed in the fragment from Clement. In both instances an

21 See Alain Le Boulluec, La notion d'hérésie dans la littérature grecque IIe-IIIe siècles, 2 vols. (Paris, 1985), I, p. 240; II, pp. 515-516. 22 Origen, Io.Com II XXI 137 = Heracleon, fr. 2 (Brooke). 23 Origen refers here to 1 Cor. 2, 14-15. 24 Origen, Io.Com II XXI 139. Greek authors sometimes cut the discussion short in this way; see also the example of Eusebius, HE I 11, 9. 25 See Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus, p. 162. 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 44

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intimate relationship is implied between Christ or the Logos and the spiritual believers or pneumatics.26 As the passage above says, the Logos ‘provides them with their first modeling’ and carries and displays ‘what another had sown’. The meaning of this phrase is rather elusive and may best be clarified in comparison with other fragments from Heracleon’s commentary. The fragment of Heracleon that immediately precedes the fragment just discussed comments on John 1,3 (tò pánta diˆ aûtoÕ êgéneto)27 is also pre- occupied with the use of prepositions, in this case âpó or üpó and diá.28 The prepositions are important for Heracleon as means to interpret the Logos as the intermediary between the Father and the Demiurge. The Logos is part of the superior divine reality and carries in itself the divine “seed”, but it transmits to the Demiurge the order of creation and does not fashion the cosmos itself. The Demiurge does not fully understand the consequences of its actions and makes errors. We also learn that the creation of humans by the Demiurge is not material or pneumatic but a category in between, which Heracleon calls cuxikóv.29 Only by the intervention of the Logos can humans become pneumatics, and it is only in and through the Logos that the spiritual seed is transmitted. This may explain why Heracleon puts so much emphasis on the preposition “in”: for him it lies at the core of his theology of human salvation.30 Since Clement called Heracleon ‘one of the most prominent students of Valentinus’, it may be opportune to look at a passage from Valentinus, preserved in Clement's works. This passage contains a layered structure similar to that of Heracleon, but the system is more elaborately articulated.

26 For the pneumatics, see also Devoti, ‘Antropologia’, pp. 29-35. Wucherpfennig, Hera- cleon Philologus, pp. 168-171. 27 Origen, Io.Com II XIV 100-104 = Heracleon, fr. 1 (Brooke). For a full discussion of this fragment, see Antonio Orbe, En los Albores de la Exegesis Iohannea (Ioh. I, 3). Estudios Valentinianos, Vol. II, Analecta Gregoriana, 65 (Rome, 1955). 28 See Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus, pp. 141-151. 29 See also Heracleon, fr. 40 (Brooke), and Manlio Simonetti, ‘Psyché e psychikos nella gnosi valentiniana’, Revista di storia e letteratura religiosa, 2 (1966), pp. 1ff. 30 See also Barbara Aland, ‘Erwählungstheologie und Menschenklassenlehre. Die Theolo- gie des Heracleon als Schlüssel zum Verständnis der christlichen Gnosis?’, in Gnosis and Gnosticism, ed. Martin Krause (Leiden, 1981), pp. 139-181. Eckehard Mühlenberg, ‘Wieviel Erlösungen kennt der Gnostiker Heracleon?’, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissen- schaft, 66 (1975), pp. 170ff. 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 45

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‘However much the image is inferior to the living face, just so is the world inferior to the living aeon. What is now the cause of the image? It is the majesty of the face that has furnished to the painter the model in order that the image might be honored by his name. For the form was not reproduced with perfect fidelity, yet the name completed what was missing within the modeling. And also what is invisible in God cooperates to give credit to what has been modeled’.31

The passage suggests a creation myth, in which a higher divine reality serves as a model for a lower entity.32 This scheme is Platonic in structure but also takes elements from the creation myth of Gen. 1,27, in which humankind is created according to the image (eîkÉn) of God. It shows a process of hierar- chy and emanation, in which the various levels are called “images”. The images are copies, and themselves issue copies in an elaborate process in which each level mirrors a higher divine reality. Thus the Father can be conceived as the image of the Pleroma, the human Christ as the image of the Son, and the archangels as the image of the aeons in an ongoing process. In the passage of Valentinus cited above, the image is probably the Creator god or Demiurge, and the Living Face indicates the Supreme God or the Only Begotten. Combining this essentially Platonic scheme with the beginning of Gene- sis has proven to be a very productive methodology for Jewish and Christ- ian thought.33 The first chapters of Genesis, and, in particular, the “first and second creation story” in Gen. 1,26 and 2,7 were among the most com-

31 Clement, Str. IV 89, 6-90, 1 = Valentinus, fr. 5 (Markschies). 32 A distinction is made between eîkÉn as constituent of humanity and ömoíwsiv / ömoiótjv as implying spiritual perfection. Occasionally, Clement makes this distinction himself (Str. IV 30, 1) or refers to others (Str. II 31, 6). There is no reason to distrust Clement's ren- dering of Valentinian thought here in a general sense; compare, for example, Exc. 54, where Theodotus distinguishes the creation of man in a threefold way: the earthly man is katˆ eîkóna, the psychic kaqˆ ömoíwsin, and the pneumatic katˆ îdían; see also Irenaeus' render- ing of Ptolemaeus' thoughts in Adv.Haer. I 5, 5; and V 6, 1, where Irenaeus gives his own interpretation based on Pauline texts. 33 In the later Platonic school traditions the “doctrines” of Plato’s Timaeus were much debated and expanded. One of the differences, influential for later Jewish and Christian perceptions, is that Plato’s creator god eventually was split in two. The highest god (a tran- scendent noetic entity) did not create directly but only through the activity of a second god (the rational part of the cosmic soul). Later Platonism also has a more complex hier- archy of living beings, a concept that has cast its shadow over ages later; for the relationship between the Timaeus and later Platonic thought, see David T. Runia, Philo of Alexan- dria and the Timaeus of Plato (Amsterdam, 1983), pp. 36-37. 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 46

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mented passages of the bible in second century Christian writings.34 The combination of Platonic concepts and biblical creation stories was already prepared in Hellenistic Judaism, and Christian authors could have borrowed the hermeneutical traditions from their Jewish predecessors. Philo of Alexan- dria, of course, offers the clearest example of such a method in which the creative process is interpreted within a Platonic framework. This is not the place to dwell on Philo and the complexity of his thought, but a mention of his general scheme may clarify the subject at hand: for Philo, God or God’s intel- lectual creativity created a model, after which humankind in its ideal form was made. Thus in multi-layered structure, humankind is modeled after the image of the image of God. There is an evident analogy between Philo’s layered conception and the creation myths of Heracleon and Valentinus, both probably influenced by the philosophical currents of their times. There are, however, also conspicuous differences. For Philo the Logos functioning as the active element of God’s creative thought remains an integral part of the divine unity - including its creative activity. In the Valentinian system, that unity is broken up, a nega- tive valuation of the creation appears, and an enormous gap exists between the ultimate divine reality and the created world. The disjunction between the divine realm and the created world translates into a division in the divine realm itself, between the creator God and the highest God. Although the two fragments from Heracleon come from two different set- tings, the one dealing with martyrdom and the other with protology, the treatment of the preposition “in” is comparable.35 In both passages, the preposition functions as a key element in the interpretation of the creation story, which has Christ or the Logos stand in close relationship and become virtu- ally identical with the spiritual believers, an identification to which Origen objects. The Alexandrian authors themselves, and, in particular, Origen, offer numerous examples of a conscious use of prepositions, comparable to the

34 Biblia Patristica shows many occurrences from Gen. 1,26-27 and Gen. 2,7 from an early time onward. Elaine Pagels pointed out the importance of the creation account for a variety of sources in addition to the Gospels of Thomas and John, the main focus of her study. She also alludes to the connection between baptismal ritual and the reading of Genesis; see Elaine Pagels, ‘Exegesis of Genesis 1 in Thomas and John’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 118 (1999), pp. 477-496. 35 Heracleon, frs. 50 and 3 (Brooke). 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 47

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way in which Heracleon handled them.36 In the passage that leads up to fragment 2 of Heracleon, Origen discusses two Johannine texts: “the word was in the beginning” and “what was made was life in him”. He sketches out that the preposition “in” has a different meaning in these instances.

‘We must carefully watch the two ways in which “in” is used and closely exam- ine their difference: first in the phrase “the word in the beginning” and secondly in the phrase “the life in the word”’.37

Origen then builds up his theory of creation, in which his main argument hangs on the difference between the verbs “to be” and “to be made”.38 The preposition “in” is used in both instances but is defined by the different verbs. What separates the prepositional phrases “in the beginning” and “life in the word” is that the Logos “was” (¥n) in the beginning and not “was made” (êgéneto), while life “was made” and not “was”. For Origen as for Philo, the Logos is an intrinsic part of the divine entity - including its creational activity - but unlike Philo, Origen identifies the Logos with Christ. “Life” is a further step away. Although it is linked to the Logos, it is not part of the Logos. “Life” comes into being and is related to the Logos because of the creation of humankind. This interpretation is based on the reading “what was made was life in him”, which is a textual variant also attested in some NT manuscripts and equally used by Heracleon and Origen.39 Other ancient and modern readings take “what was made” as the end of the previous phrase, in which case Origen’s interpretation would not

36 For Origen as philologist, see Bernhard Neuschäfer, Origenes als Philologe, Schweiz- erische Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft, 18/1-2 (Basel, 1987). 37 Origen, Io.Com II XIX 130. 38 Origen’s passage evokes a broad metaphysical distinction, a famous example of which occurs in Plato’s Timaeus (27-29). 39 John 1,3-4 pánta diˆ aûtoÕ êgéneto, kaì xwrìv aûtoÕ êgéneto oûdè ∏n, Ω gégonen. ên aût¬ç hw® ¥n, kaì ™ hw® ¥n tò f¬v t¬n ânqrÉpwn. As Origen (Io.Com II XIX 132) explains: Tinà méntoi ge t¬n ântigráfwn ∂xei, kaì táxa oûk âpiqánwv. ÁO gégonen ên aût¬ç hw® êstin (‘Some copies have, and perhaps not unpersuasively, “what was made in him is life”’). For the textual traditions in Heracleon and Origen, see Bart D. Ehrman, ‘Heracleon, Origen, and the Text of the Fourth Gospel’, Vigiliae Christianae, 47 (1993), pp. 105-118; Idem, ‘Heracleon and the ‘Western’ Textual Tradition’, New Testament Studies, 40 (1994), pp. 161- 179. Bart D. Ehrman, Gordon D. Fee, Michael W. Holmes, The Text of the Fourth Gospel in the Writings of Origen (Atlanta, 1992). 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 48

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make sense. Origen is quick to assert, however, that neither of these prepositional phrases should be understood in a temporal or chronological sense but in a sense of order. The passage has a polemical edge, and Origen’s real opponents in this discourse appear in another passage: they are presumably Valentinians, who have a different view of the creation story. As Origen points out, they con- ceive of “Life” on an equal footing with the Logos in the creational process. “Life” in this way is perceived as counterpart of the Logos. They both flow out from another pair, Intellect (noÕv) and Truth (âlßqeia), in a process of emanation. The word for “pair” here is súhugov, which can also be translated as “spouse”, or with an archaic term “yokefellow.” The image is that of two partners bound together in order to move together.

‘Against those who invent a myth about aeons in pairs and consider that Word and Life have been emitted by Intellect and Truth, it may not be beside the point to raise the following difficulties: how can Life, which according to them is the spouse of the Word, receive its existence in the spouse? For it (the gospel) says “that which was made in him”, which is clearly in the above-mentioned Word, “was Life”. Let them tell us how the spouse of the Word became Life in the Word, and how Life rather than the Word is the Light of the people?’40

Again the background of this passage is a discourse about creation, which reflects two different views of the creational process. Although both the Valen- tinians and Origen identify the Logos with Christ, Origen’s perception is more succinct; he keeps the creational activity through the Logos within the divine realm and in that sense closer to Philo’s conception. For the Valen- tinians there is a great divide between divine realm and the appreciation of the created world - so much so that the divinity is divided in its creational activity. The Valentinians also have a more complex system of emanation in the process of creation. In both systems the process of salvation comes through the Logos, but for the Valentinians the spiritual parts sown into the material world will return to their origin to be reunified with the divine realm. In that sense there is a closer correspondence between the divine entity and spiritual humanity.

40 Origen, Io.Com II XXIV 155. 1783-08_JECS_04_VanDenHoek 31-03-2009 13:39 Pagina 49

HERACLEON AND THE HERMENEUTICS OF PREPOSITIONS 49

More than a hundred years ago Alan England Brooke, the editor of Hera- cleon’s fragments, compared the hermeneutical methods of Origen and Her- acleon as follows: ‘both extract the meaning they desire from the words on which they are commenting by a violent system of metaphorical distortion. But whereas Origen applies his method more consistently, and endeavors to find meaning which is based on a system formed from the study of the Fourth Gospel as a whole and of other books whose teaching is not alien to that of his Gospel, Heracleon attempts, very often with excessive wildness, to dis- cover in the Gospel a system which has only a superficial and verbal connection with it’.41 Nowadays most scholars probably would not assess the relationship in such a one-sided way. The Nag Hammadi writings have educated modern scholarship about the rich and fertile ground in which some of these creation myths flourished. They have also taught us the enormous diversity out of which Christianity emerged, a Christianity that would eventually become more centralized and unified in terms of organization and beliefs. One of the vehicles to express the conceptual differences between Origen and Heracleon is their use of prepositions. In commenting on prepositional constructions, both Heracleon and Origen are inspired by biblical passages. They are not freewheeling on the basis of grammar or rhetoric per se, but their point of departure always comes from their scriptural readings. They are conditioned by questions of how to set short words or subtle inflections in a broad theological perspective. The technique is not applied for the fun of it but it is based in distinctive hermeneutical practices. As seen above, the debate is often heated, and Origen accuses his adver- sary of violent distortion. Indeed, only by imaginative leaps can Heracleon launch his hermeneutics of prepositions. Origen, however, does not use a very different technique; he makes the same kind of interpretative leaps, but he comes to different conclusions. Although their conceptual background is different, both authors reveal their debt to a layered conception of creational activity. Both are influenced by a scheme of Platonic derivation, and both use similar linguistic tools to express the relationships between the divine and human orders.*

41 Brooke, Fragments, p. 48. * Thanks go to John Herrmann and Gary Anderson for their observations and helpful comments.